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Okay, so you've got £1.65 million in your bank account. What do you spend it on?
A Batmobile replica? Diving to see the Titanic? Developing a cure for two-day hangovers?
If it were us, we’d invest in real estate.
A certain four-bed Bloomsbury apartment, maybe.
Ridgmount Gardens has a Victoria brick facade, two bathrooms and reception rooms, period fireplaces and windows, and access to a communal residents’ garden.
It’s also where Bob Marley lived when he first arrived in London in 1972.
The reggae singer came to the UK as a support act for Johnny Nash and toured with his band The Wailers in the hope of landing a record deal. Spoiler: he met Chris Blackwell, owner of Island Records, released a string of politically charged albums, spent more than 570 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart and – some say most importantly – inspired a forthcoming jukebox musical, soon to hit the London West End.
It was while living at the flat on Oakley Street that Marley finished recording ‘Exodus’, the album which catapulted him and his ‘One Love’ mantra to stardom.
Today the property’s decor doesn’t really reflect the Marley era, with the floors, ceilings, walls and furniture all keeping to an all-white aesthetic. But a blue cultural heritage plaque is proudly mounted on the exterior. It was unveiled by his widow, Rita, in 2006 as part of Black History Month. Marley’s is one of only 4 percent of London’s 900 blue plaques dedicated to Black and Asian figures across the capital.
Find out more about the property at Dexters.